Armory, Disciplines, and Guildleve. How are all of these intertwined? I've been thinking about previous FF games and thought of something.

With it's emphasis on weapons, I think that FFXIV is going to incorporate FFXII's license system via completing guildleve.

Guildleve, this game's system of accepting and completing quests, seems to be largely overlooked so far. But, as anyone who has played an MMORPG knows, questing is an integral part of leveling and improving your character, as well as advancing the story. In some games it is more prominent that in others, but it always exists in some form. Is FFXIV, lacking levels, only going to be using guildleve to advance the story? Or is there more to it? I believe it serves some other purpose.

But we haven't heard what players gain by completing these quests yet.

What restricts us from using more advanced weapons to learn new skills? This wasn't mentioned yet by SE. In most games it's level and/or stats (and in most games characters gain stats by raising their level, either automatically or by distributing them)

But, as we know, FFXIV lacks levels. So how? I believe the answer is guildleve.

In FFXII there was a license system. You couldn't wear certain armor or equip certain weapons unless you had a 'license' for it. How can we obtain licenses in FFXIV? Guildleve.

One definition of 'leve': 1. Liberty granted by which restraint or illegality is removed; permission; allowance; license.

(Granted, this could be in reference to allowing permission to venture into resitricted areas...as mentioned on the official website. But it could mean more.)

I believe that when we begin the game we won't be choosing a class at the character creation screen. Rather, our starting 'class' will be chosen by the first guildleve that we complete.

So, say you just completed your first guildleve quest. You're granted a license to use a sword. You equip your new weapon and now you have the ability to learn new skills by using that weapon. You go out and kill some things to raise your skills or you complete more guildleves for armor licenses, items...or whatever.

Eventually you learn all of the skills that weapon has to offer. Maybe you're just tired of being a swordsman. You want to be a mage instead, but you haven't earned a license for equipping a staff yet. So you go back to the guild and take a new guildleve...this time it's one to earn a license to equip a staff. You complete that leve and now you can equip a beginners staff and learn beginner magic skills.

I also think that actually learning the skills permanently will require you to use the weapon several times to actually learn the skill (or use the skill several times), FFIX style.

To learn better magic skills you need a better weapon, which means going to take a guildleve to gain a license to equip one.

I'm also going to wager that weapon related guildleves are 1.) Only available after completing many other guildleves after your last weapon license. 2.) Far more difficult that normal guildleves.

How else can we stop a starting mage from equipping an end-game staff that let's him cast Flare, Ultima, etc? There are no level restrictions.

I think that this kind of system will keep character development smooth, yet open ended. You can choose which leves you want to complete, which weapons you want licenses for, what skills you want to subsequently learn...yet at the same time you can't just go off and equip ANY weapon at any time without first meeting the requirements.

So if you wanted to be a fighter you complete mostly fighter weapon-related quests to use new weapons. But if you want to use just the beginning healing spells, you only need to complete the initial guildleve to wield a staff...rather than needing to do a staff-related guildleve every time you want to learn new skills.

This way, people earn the right to learn more difficult spells. Not just anyone can pick up any staff at any time without first completing a guildleve.

A fighter who has all his fighter skills learned can't go pick up the best mage staff in the game and suddenly learn Holy, Curaga IV, Raise III, or whatever.

But this post wouldn't be complete without mentioning a supposed "see-saw" effect.

Take from the official Final Fantasy XIV website, under guildleves, page 2

"After weighing risks against rewards, fame against fortune, adventurers may then select the leves they feel best suit their needs."

So we'll have several quests to chose from. Will we only be able to choose one, and then the rest will vanish? I doubt it. I would imagine it will be like...starting off. "You can choose the leve for the figther, sorcerer, gatherer, or craftsman." If you choose fighter, the other 3 will remain there for you to take any time you want, but upon completing the fighter leve you will be opened up to the opportunity to take more 'fighter-related' leves...opening the door to new fighter weapons. (You would also, of course, need to complete leves to get better craftsman and gatherer weapons. Perhaps advanced levels of these leves will only be available upon raising your crafting/gathering skills or by crafting/gathering enough items.)

The same goes for the other three branches when (and should) you decide to take them.

Your thoughts?

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Toasting makes me uncomfortable. But toast I love. Never start the day without a good piece of toast. In fact, let's toast to toast.

Plain and Simple, I like the concept. I've often found myself comparing this game more to XII than XI, with like you said license. I doubt they will call it a license or any such thing but I would take this into an account of strongly possible things.

Edit: Well now I have a questions, when I played FFXII they listed names of weapons to use. are you thinking they might do the same? or say you can now purchase "rank 2" which is say X amount of weapons that require you to have done X amount of Guildleves and so forth.

with a little different point of view, i just answered something along theses lines(detailled more here) :

since i don't believe on "ability tied with a weapon", with a weapon's skill ok, but not a physical one, would be ******** economy...

on a "ffx sphere grind"-like system, you'd advance using a weapon, with something like ffxi skill(but here used the way you grind the sphere in ffx) to go up in the sphere, then, you would have to get guildleve to unlock the abilities&co.

for each weapon you get a "board"(and maybe a general one)

by choosing x guildleve, you could upgrade an ability or a stat tied to it(maybe limited by discipline, so can't unlock mage thing with a warrior leve)

add with maybe some "control points" where you need to have unlocked x "bubbles"(or even x of a kind to be able to go further that way) to continue.

that would help for the physical weapon "restriction use" : you can use a weapon if you have enough "control point"; if i passed 2 control points, i can use a "lv.2" weapon

basicaly, you have a board with a path filled with bubbles containing bonus(hp+, str+, etc) and abilities, when you xp(i think, been a while) you can go forward on the path whit some points, and with some other kind of points(don't remember well) you can pop the bubbles to get the bonus

in ffx, "walking" on the path cost something(more if the path is unknow than know), and you have to be on the bubble to pop it not sure if it is that great of an idea for the application here, but would be too easy without

basicaly, you have a board with a path filled with bubbles containing bonus(hp+, str+, etc) and abilities, when you xp you can go forward on the path, and with some kind of points(don't remember well) you can pop the bubbles to get the bonus

Can you only go down one path though? can you deviate from your normal path and such?

One thing im not so psyched about the guildleve system is that only the one who possess the particular leve will benefit from its rewards. When they mention you and your party members can join up and wage a campaign made up of multiple guildleve objectives, basically it means the few of you go out and complete the objectives for each one in the party.

IMO it would be so much more rewarding to be able to combine the guildleves into particular sequences and end up with a single quest which everyone can reap rewards from (other than the obvious exping/skilling up)

IE: Rat catcher + Salying basilisk = killing a den of monsters only to have a NM pop at the end of the encounter

On another note, this guildleve system seems reminiscent of Monster Hunter guild levels, where as you rank up in the guild (like fame/missions in FFXI) you are then able to access harder and more rewarding options.

by choosing x guildleve, you could upgrade an ability or a stat tied to it(maybe limited by discipline, so can't unlock mage thing with a warrior leve)

add with maybe some "control points" where you need to have unlocked x "bubbles"(or even x of a kind to be able to go further that way) to continue.

that would help for the physical weapon "restriction use" : you can use a weapon if you have enough "control point"; if i passed 2 control points, i can use a "lv.2" weapon

That is definitely another way of doing it that could be implemented. Completing a certain number of guild leves associated with that type of weapon in order to use higher rank weapons.

The reason I was thinking of major weapon-related guildleves as roadblocks, per se, is that these leves would stand out from the rest in that they would be far more difficult and could also reveal important plot points in the story.

Averrinicus wrote:

Well now I have a questions, when I played FFXII they listed names of weapons to use. are you thinking they might do the same? or say you can now purchase "rank 2" which is say X amount of weapons that require you to have done X amount of Guildleves and so forth.

I would imagine that it can go either way. Will it be just "rank 2 bows are no available to you" or "you can now use rank 2 long bow!" "you can now use rank 2 short bow!" "you can now use rank 2 crossbow!"

I suppose that could depend on a few different things. How dependant are skills and abilities on weapons specifically. Do all bows give the same stats and skills? Or is it laregely dependent on the exact type of bow?

Furthermore, how dependent will we be on the guildleve system? Will there be quests outside of guildleve? I'm sure there will be, but who knows? If we're going to be very dependent on guildleve to obtain 'licenses' then it's possible that there will be leves associated with very specific weapons...rather than just weapon types.

Otherwise, once completing a leve, you gain a license to use an improved sword and you have a wide variety of improved swords you want to use, depending on what skills/stats you want.

Averrinicus wrote:

[quote]"ffx sphere grind"-like system

I never played FFX, what is the Sphere idea that I see floating around?

While FFX has levels you were able to move each characters "sphere" around on a grid of spheres. Different characters started off in different areas, but they were all tied together at some point. Each character has their own section, but by obtaining sphere keys you were able unlock "locked spheres" and then move one character to another character's sphere.

When you moved your character's sphere to a new 'node' you learned what was on that node. It could be HP +100, MP +10, Curaga, STR +1...anything at all.

Also, anyone could learn anything once you unlocked the locked nodes. For example, Tidus, mainly a fighter, could move from his sphere to Yuna's sphere (mainly a healer) and learn all of the healing spells and get all of the MP boosts etc that Yuna had. Anyone who fills up the entire grid with every character will have everyone being almost identical in skills and abilities...starting stats aside.

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Toasting makes me uncomfortable. But toast I love. Never start the day without a good piece of toast. In fact, let's toast to toast.

One thing im not so psyched about the guildleve system is that only the one who possess the particular leve will benefit from its rewards. When they mention you and your party members can join up and wage a campaign made up of multiple guildleve objectives, basically it means the few of you go out and complete the objectives for each one in the party.

IMO it would be so much more rewarding to be able to combine the guildleves into particular sequences and end up with a single quest which everyone can reap rewards from (other than the obvious exping/skilling up)

I got the feeling that the leve's were a way to give you a variety of options on 'how' to complete the quest. Something along the lines of there a quest to deal with a large group of monster amassing in a nearby area, Option 1: Go into area and kill a certain number to weaken their force Option 2: Find and kill their more powerful leader thus weakening their coordination Option 3: Go to an spot were an npc brigade is fighting on the front lines and support/heal them while they push forward.

This could go along with the OP's idea as each task requires a different skill set and more then likely weapon. This also means when you decide to train anther skill set your not out doing the same quests you did when you first went through.

Finaa, I'm hoping for something very similar to what you have described. I actually don't mind if you have 4 players and decide to go on an "exp" grind cruise of possibly 4 different leve's.

Say you have two magers and two fighters ( two disciplines of magic and two disciplines of war ) but theyre working on 4 different leves, one for each person. Two of the leves are multiple mobs, one is a harder fiend, and one is a quest in a place you dont have access to.

Fighter 1 has one of the multiple mob leves and this would grant him access to a new weapon. it is completed and they move onto fighter 2's leve

Fighter 2 has a hard fiend leve that allows him access to a new ability. it is completed and they move onto mage 1's leve

mage 1 has one the multiple mob leves and this would grant him access to a new rod. it is completed and they move onto mage 2's leve

mage 2 has the leve that takes them to a restriced area for a specific task. It will be used to advance him as a disciple of the hand. it is completed and the campaign is over.

During the entire time the four characters grind stats on their weapons for any current skill/stat theyre working on to attain. they can change jobs during any of the leves incase a certain group on monsters needs an extra sleeper or magic damage has no effect. It may also have a FoV'esque touch and when you complete these you get points to spend on buffs/food/warps and bonus gil and exp for weapons when you complete the tasks, making it beneficial to help others.

I did enjoy FFX's battle system more than the beginning story to the game. ( the end of the game was amazing though I have to admit ). I dont know how well the sphere grid would work if you had to place characters in seperate areas. it could possibly all start in one area and branch out in opossite directions. If they found a way to work it out I would have no real complaints.

One thing im not so psyched about the guildleve system is that only the one who possess the particular leve will benefit from its rewards. When they mention you and your party members can join up and wage a campaign made up of multiple guildleve objectives, basically it means the few of you go out and complete the objectives for each one in the party.

IMO it would be so much more rewarding to be able to combine the guildleves into particular sequences and end up with a single quest which everyone can reap rewards from (other than the obvious exping/skilling up)

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It don't make sense to have only one person get the reward/completion of a leve. For some reason I think whoever in the party, has the same leve, that they'll get the complete/reward for the task, because the other way seems like bcnm where everyone has "cloud orb" but only one can be traded at a time (big time sink there especially if the quest is a long one), so 6 separate fights. Why would SE incorporate it that way, just for the guildleve system.

There will be other things se incorporates for the time sink like bcnm sea limbus..etc. But, the mission system, I would think, would be like xi. Where if all have the same mission all will get the complete for it.

I like the ideas for how the weapon progression might work. FFX and XII, especially, if the two are combined. More XII though. Also, Tactic:Advance and XII use the same system(similar). with Montblanc as the Clan leader handing out missions or reading from the "wanted" bulletin board. People keep saying monster hunter, but ffxii has the same mission setup.

Quoted Text One thing im not so psyched about the guildleve system is that only the one who possess the particular leve will benefit from its rewards. When they mention you and your party members can join up and wage a campaign made up of multiple guildleve objectives, basically it means the few of you go out and complete the objectives for each one in the party.

versus quote for the FFXIV website

"Adventurer's are free to call upon their companions to join them, as only one leve is required to take advantage of the benefits and privileges provided to its bearer"

edit: It's like 1 Orb for a BCNM, and everyone gets a drop. I think you are all misreading the webpage.

I think that like he said you only need one orb for BCNM or when I played WoW only one person with the quest. all you have to do is share it and I think the benefits will carry over like most games, I don't know of any games that would not let you get the benefits if you get the quest shared and you do it.

The concept of Guildleves reminds me of the mission types that were available in Monster Hunter which which only makes em more anxious to play ffxiv.

Guildlevs:

Valor:

Portrays the scene of Saint Daniffen and the Basilisk. Muster the courage to stand against those who would threaten the weak.

Reminds me of the Hunting quests in MH.

Diligence:

Portrays the scene of Saint Tother the Ratcatcher. Earn the gratitude of your peers by humbly accepting the tasks that others shun, and working earnestly to complete them.

Reminds me of the Delivery quests that the majority of players in MH seemed to hate the most. Due to the fact you'd have to carry up to 3 heavy items that you'd drop if an any hits you, and usually you are set on a path where you have to deal with a bunch of mobs pursuing you. I personally Liked these missions more than Hunting quests since I got a lot more exhilaration from having to avoid mobs I normally never find threating to me at all. One tap and you have to run back to the main source of whatever you have to gather and try again.

Constancy:

Portrays the scene of Saint Moergynn and the Edgeless Blade. Focus your passion upon a single task, wielding your talents to aid those in need.

This one reminds me of the gathering quests in MH where sometimes you'd have to forage for a desired item by the client. Other times you had to make the item yourself such as providing cooked meat for a banquette the client is holding.

The details of the quests are strictly provided strictly through the quests descriptions so its not like you are dealing directly with these clients. They just post notes on a bulletin board at the guildhall for mercenaries.

I make these comparisons since ever since playing MH I hoped a lot more games would develop this method of dishing out missions since it makes things more streamlined, to the point, and of course rewarding.